Trump tried to pay after being intimate: Ex-model

US President Donald Trump once tried to offer Karen McDougal money after they had been intimate, the former Playboy model told CNN.

"After we had been intimate, he tried to pay me, and I actually didn't know how to take that," she told the news channel on Thursday of their first alleged sexual encounter over a decade ago.

When asked if Trump tried to hand her money, McDougal said: "He did."

"I don't even know how to describe the look on my face...It must have been so sad."

As for, Melania Trump, who was married to the President during the alleged affair, McDougal expressed remorse and apologised.

"What can you say except I'm sorry?" she said. "I'm sorry. I wouldn't want it done to me."

Thursday's sitdown was McDougal's first televised interview since she filed a lawsuit earlier this week against American Media Inc., the company that owns The National Enquirer, to be released from an agreement with the company.

Shortly before the presidential election, The Wall Street Journal published a story that said American Media Inc. paid $150,000 to McDougal, but did not run her story in a tabloid maneuver known as "catch and kill".

The contract, according to the Journal, did not require the Enquirer to run the story and compelled McDougal's silence.

The White House has said Trump denies the alleged affair.

Asked about Trump's denials, McDougal said told CNN: "I guess I understand because he's trying to protect his family, his image, things like that. But it was definitely a little like, 'Wow, you're going to lie about that?'"

She also described herself in the interview as a Trump-voting Republican. "I voted for Donald."

Last month, the New Yorker published an article that referenced an eight-page document McDougal wrote about the alleged affair, which a friend provided to the magazine and the former model confirmed.

Meanwhile, porn star Stormy Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, has likewise gone to court to break her silence about an alleged affair with Trump around the same time.

Trump has denied those allegations as well.